Channel Nine gouges second slab out of airport peach

A great yarn. A story ripe for the picking. Once again, the publisher of Australia’s newspaper of record has allowed itself to indulge in a provocative bit of baiting of The Man, forging in the process a repeat of last weekend’s sidestep into regions near absurdity. Only difference between two relatively proximate sites of political speech being that now the actual dollar figures – landowner compensation gazetted by the government – are out there for value-sensitive, property-conscious Sydneysiders to contemplate. It’s $300 per square metre for land to be developed and $20 per square metre for land to be used for a “green” zone. This lady isn’t happy so you can guess what category her land is listed under.

Who’s she up against? Well, this guy for a start.

Maria lives in the area and Goliath works for the state government though Zucco looks like she weighs more than he does (the two chaps Channel Nine found to populate their week-earlier segment also being grossly overweight). Not short of a few bob, or else too frequently snacking on hot chips. Now might be a good time for the United Australia Party to field a candidate in Mulgoa. 

Though, maybe not. A staunch Liberal seat, which makes sense if you look slantwise at Channel Nine’s offering to viewers still dazzled by 6 January.

Time to beef up the attack on governments of all flavours. Isn’t the Liberal Party the party of small government? It’s almost as though Macquarie Street were in the process of putting pressure on the boffins inside the actual department who decide such things as compensation. 

Resolute, Channel Nine demands viewers watch a good 60 seconds of footage for a story that might’ve been adequately dealt with as a to-camera address by the TV anchor. Enough to just mention the previous story and add the dollar figures, which had been missing last time. Quite adequate in that guise without new talking heads to fill up half the screens in Sydney. 

Western Sydney Airport is a juicy fruit. Plenty of stories still to come, you can bet on that. And – for the TV station that brings you ‘The Block’ – what better angle to adopt as your very own than land values. Property as religion.

How much effort did it take to put together this Thursday night news segment? I think it could’ve been done just as effectively with far less.

Koalas versus the big end of town

Badgery’s Creek green zones are good for koalas but anger property owners.

I had a struggle when writing this story because initially I couldn’t locate the evening news segment where I learned of it. It took a bit of digging. I thought it might’ve been Channel Nine or Network Ten, but from my PC it was impossible to find the segment. The Daily Terror had a story on its website but – of course – it’s paywalled so no go there, and when I went back to the TV to log into the Nine and Ten OTT services it took me about an hour to find the relevant section of video.

It’s on the Nine site. What drove me to spend the time doing this – let’s face it – tedious work being to link koalas with the selfishness of property owners who think they might’ve gotten a better return for land they own if it were to be purchased by a developer, than by the state government for parks for wildlife. In doing so I also have cause to talk about the media’s obligation to analyse more when it reports news.

I think it’s fair to say that no-one wants the koala to become extinct in the wild. Do we agree on that point? 

Good, because you cannot have it both ways and I’m sure Nine has, in the past, reported ethically on the plight of the poor koala. I’m sure they will in future but surely their debt to such customers as BFC and Toyota – seller of camping goods and maker of four-wheel drives – would place a certain weight, in the balance of our collective esteem, on protection of the environment. 

It seems, though, that this is not the case. The majors are quite happy to step up to the plate and to bat for property developers – who are, of course, significant employers in the big cities, as well as users of the services of such companies as Nine – when it suits them. 

I can understand the Terror’s animus against anything remotely savouring of greeneity but – Nine? Surely the publisher of the august Sydney Morning Herald – Australia’s newspaper of record – must see how unfortunate it is to allow overweight Boomers (see image below) to invade our private spaces with their gripes surrounding council proposals, their belligerent canvassing of favour as property owners – we all own property, and want to own more – and the TV compere’s sneering appeal to our better natures on their behalf.

Georgie Gardner inviting viewers to sympathise with the men in their battle against government (and don’t we all hate government?). 

It’s difficult to ignore the station’s tin ear when the spokespeople for the big end of town are two unprepossessing battlers from out west. But then, to complete the circle of madness they’d started, the very next day on the SMH website a link was posted to a story titled “‘How good were koalas?’: A national treasure in peril” by journalist Stephanie Wood. This is a Good Weekend story, therefore one which involved a decent amount of work to put together. 

If you want, like Wood, to protect creatures who rely on our good offices for their very survival, then it might mean lowering your expectations when the time comes to calculate return on investment. That parcel of rural land your father bought back in the 1950s might thus not be worth tens of millions of dollars, but only millions. Or even less. 

Is it worth settling for less on account of the struggling koala? I think so, and the media has a part to play in this epic fight.